Abstract: The author states that "the rapid infusion of new technologies, new worker expectations, and customer demands of the last few years have not fit well with the restrictive lob boxes, status-laden levels of hierarchy, and narrowly focused functions of traditional organizational thinking." What is needed in this "second industrial revolution" a new organization and a fundamental change in employer values and employer attitudes toward the worker.
Far too often, organizations have—under the guise of being results oriented—focused on controlling rather than enabling the worker. The cost of this control is a bureaucracy that slows innovation, de-skills workers, and reduces employee motivation.